Employer ULP 6: Discrimination Because of Testimony

● It shall be unlawful for an employer to dismiss, discharge, or otherwise prejudice or discriminate against an employee for having given or being about to give testimony under this Code. (Art. 248, Labor Code)

● This is the only unfair labor practice that need not be related to the exercise by the employees of their right to self-organization and collective bargaining.

● In Itogon-Suyoc Mines, Inc. v. Baldo, it was declared that an unfair labor practice was committed by the employer when it dismissed the worker who had testified in the hearing of a certification election case despite its prior request for the employee not to testify in the said proceeding accompanied with a promise of being reinstated if he followed said request. 

● Although subdivision (5) of paragraph (a) of said Section 4 would seem to refer only to the discharge of the one who preferred charges against the company as constituting unfair labor practice, the aforementioned subdivision (5) should be construed in line with the spirit and purpose of said Section 4 and of the legislation of which forms part — namely, to assure absolute freedom of the employees and laborers to establish labor organizations and unions, as well as to prefer charges before the proper organs of the Government for violation of our labor laws. Now, then, if the dismissal of an employee due to the filing by him of said charges would be and is an undue restraint upon said freedom, the dismissal of his brother owing to the non-withdrawal of the charges of the former, would be and constitute as much a restraint upon the same freedom. In fact, it may be a greater and more effective restraint thereto. Indeed, a complainant may be willing to risk the hazards of a possible and even probable retaliatory action by the employer in the form of a dismissal or another discriminatory act against him personally, considering that nobody is perfect, that everybody commits mistakes and that there is always a possibility that the employer may find in the records of any employee, particularly if he has long been in the service, some act or omission constituting a fault or negligence which may be an excuse for such dismissal or discrimination. Yet, such complainant may not withstand the pressure that would result if his brother or another member of his immediate family were threatened with such action unless the charges in question were withdrawn. (Philippine American Cigar & Cigarette Factory Workers Independent Union vs. Philippine American Cigar, G.R. No. L-18364, February 28, 1963)